August 13, 1961

[Martin Antonenko]

"On August 13th, the GDR saved the peace ...!"

The Berlin Wall is being built ...


On August 13, 1961, at 1:00 a.m., the lights went out at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, which was divided between East and West
Members of the police and armed factory combat groups of the GDR are pulling up on the sector border...:





Ten minutes later the GDR radio reported that "an order is now being introduced" at the West Berlin border, which would guarantee "reliable guarding and control."

Within a few hours, the GDR troops were blocking the border to West Berlin with barbed wire barriers completely from ...:



A short time later they start building a 3.60 meter high wall that encloses all of West Berlin ...:







Incidentally, in the first row of their guards, the GDR superiors deliberately put members of the "Betriebskampfgruppen", factory combat groups, armed workers and not soldiers, as they look less martial and are supposed to have a de-escalating effect ...:



With the construction of the wall, the GDR leadership wants to prevent other well-educated citizens from fleeing to the west (to West Berlin) via this last escape route (the rest of the German-German border was already sealed off) due to the poor political and economic situation in the country.

In June 1961, GDR head of state and party, Walter Ulbricht, answered a question from a Western correspondent at one of his rare press conferences: "Nobody has any intention of building a wall!"



Translation of Ulbricht's original words...:

"I understand your question to mean that there are people in West Germany that we are mobilizing the construction workers in the capital of the GDR to erect a wall.

I am not aware of any such intention. The construction workers in our capital are mainly engaged in housing construction, and their labor is fully dedicated to this.

Nobody has any intention of building a wall! "

Those words went down in history as one of the boldest lies of all times!

Although we now know that Ulbricht almost made a mistake, because he explicitly spoke of a "wall" while the correspondent asked about possible "border installations"!

In reality, his Adlatus (and later successor) Erich Honecker...



... was already working flat out on plans to seal off East Berlin and the GDR from the west of the city. However, approval from Moscow did not come until the beginning of August.

In the days and months that followed, a 46-kilometer-long wall was built between East and West Berlin and border fortifications all around West Berlin on a total of 155 kilometers ...:



Of course, the campaign is accompanied by a great deal of propaganda effort ...:





It's worth reading the next leaflet carefully - it couldn't be more cynical ...:





The propaganda culminates in the claim that on August 13, 1961 the GDR "saved the peace" by building the Berlin Wall ...:







About 20 propaganda songs were written especially for the construction of the wall. The best known is probably "In the summer sixty-one" ...:



The refrain from this song "Shut up, dead monkey!" ("Klappe zu, Affe tot!") thus became a winged word in Germany, that is known (and used) to this day.

 

[Martin64]

Maybe it should be added that since 1945 till 1961 3,5 million people - many of them younger than 25 years - had fled the Soviet Sector and that President Chruschtschow wanted to become Berlin an "open city" without the presence of Allied Forces - clearly under strong influence of the Soviets to close this gap. The uprising in the Soviet Sector of Germany on 17th June 1953 had shown that only due to Soviet military intervention the communist system could have been kept in control of the population. Therefore Walter Ulbricht had several times before suggested to Chruschtschow to close down the border at Berlin. He knew about the plans when he told that "nobody intended to build a wall". - The so-called "protective wall of the socialism" meant death or imprisonment for anyone trying to cross this border unsuccesful from East to West. The young age of many refugees (see above) clearly contradicted the socialist propaganda in the East and West that this "protective" measure should prevent the well educated and privileged people from leaving the East for living a (selfish) better life in the West.
The sudden closing of the border meant the separation of unaware families and caused the death of about 140 people until 1989 - just at Berlin.

 

[Nap]

Such a awful thing to happen , splitting family's and community's ....just senseless and such a terrible loss of life those trying to escape

Glad it was destroyed

Nap

 

[OldTaff]

I second that, Nap. The segregation of communities by religious or political dogma has ever caused much misery and suffering. And still it continues.....

Alan

 

[Airkid]

I've seen what remains of the wall, which is now covered in graffiti, some of it very artistic. We stayed in Lichtenberg which was in the old "East", where the avenues are full of the classic Soviet-era apartment blocks, now tastefully "camouflaged" with bright murals. I liked Berlin

Phil

 

[Martin Antonenko]

Thank you for the additions to the construction of the Berlin Wall!

I myself also have one that tells the story of what is arguably the most famous photo taken in those days:

A Jump Over The Barbed Wire ...


While guarding the Berlin Wall, which was still under construction, 19-year-old police NCO Conrad Schumann escaped on August 15, 1961 at Bernauer Strasse by jumping over the barbed wire to the west.

The jump is captured by the photographer Peter Leibing in a famous picture ...:



Leibing's photo was awarded the “Best Photograph award” in 1961 by the “Overseas Press Club”.

The photographer died on November 2, 2008 after a long professional life - the photo of Schumann's escape remained the most famous of his career ...:



After his escape, Conrad Schumann moved to Bavaria, first to Edenhausen (district of Günzburg, where he met his wife), then to Oberemmendorf in Upper Bavaria and worked at "Audi" as a machine setter - on special occasions he posed in front of the famous photo ... :





Unfortunately, things didn't end well:

The highly sensitive Schumann feared the revenge of former employees of the Ministry for State Security all his life, which is why he hesitated to visit his family in Saxony even after the fall of the Wall.

On June 20, 1998 - nine years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - Conrad Schumann committed suicide - he hanged himself in his garden.

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Just a few days after the wall was built, on August 24, 1961, the 24-year-old Günter Litfin was shot while trying to escape ...:











He was the first so-called "Wall Dead"!


The last person who was shot while trying to escape at this "peace border" was 20 year old Chris Gueffroy on February 5, 1989 ...:








Between 1961 and 1989, 140 people, 101 refugees and 31 people without any intention to flee (from East and West), died at the Berlin Wall.


And - what should not be forgotten: 8 GDR border guards were also among these dead, who, because conscripts, could not choose this service. The photo shows the 21 years old GDR soldier Reinhold Huhn, who was shot on June 17, 1962 by the West Berlin escape helper Rudolf Müller on GDR territory ...: